


24 Hours of You

by Merl



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, M/M, Modern AU, idk what to tag as?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-13
Updated: 2017-03-13
Packaged: 2018-10-04 05:29:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,903
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10269293
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merl/pseuds/Merl
Summary: "Forever and Always.”





	

**Author's Note:**

> I have no idea how this works please be gentle.  
> I'm not actually a fic writer so the format may be super messy ; o; but since I finally have an ao3 account I thought I would post something! 
> 
> Shout out to [Yuka](https://twitter.com/palmtreehero) for the speech!

Lance abruptly awakes from his 4 hours of sleep, his hand reaching for his phone in a panic to check the time.

_5:45am,_ 15th February.  
  


A sigh of relief escaping his lips when he realizes that he hasn’t overslept. He runs his hand through his hair roughly, eyes shifting over to his sleeping boyfriend lying next to him, Keith was  comfortably curled up in the blankets, as adorable as ever. He sits quietly in bed for a moment before deciding to get up and make breakfast.

The countdown starts. **16 hours left.**

_6:00 am,_ brush his teeth.  
_6:05 am,_ prepare breakfast.  
_6:30 am,_ Keith wakes up,  
“Morning, Lance.”  
“Morning, Babe." 

_6:45 am,_ they sit at the table and eat their pancakes, Keith tells Lance about what he plans for their date today. 

"I was thinking we could go to-”  
“The restaurant at the city square?”   
“Yeah! Afterwards we can go shopping for some-”  
“New decorations for the house.”  
“Are you reading my mind?”  Keith gives Lance a suspicious but playful look and all Lance could do was weakly smile at him,  
“I just know you that well, Babe…”  
  
They spend exactly 2 hours and 15 minutes lazing around at home and during those 2 hours and 15 minutes, Lance never left Keith’s side for a second. Lance would constantly tell Keith how much he loved him and Keith only returned his confessions with gentle kisses and ‘I love you too’ s.

**14 hours left.**

_8:00 am,_ They start to get ready to head out.

“Hey Lance have you seen my so-”  
“You left them in the laundry room."   
"Oh, I found them, thanks!"   
"Anything for you, Babe."   
_8:20 am,_ They head out. 

  
Once they walk out the door Lance immediately interlaces his fingers with Keith’s and he squeezes Keith’s hand tightly. Keith just grins at Lance and gently tugs him along. For a moment Lance lets loose, today was a date planned by Keith, a very rare occasion, he wouldn’t let Keith feel like he wasn’t enjoying it.

They spend exactly 1 hour and 30 minutes strolling around the city, Lance never letting go of Keith’s hand for even a moment, not that Keith minded at all. During the 1 hour and 30 minutes, Keith had taken Lance to many stores, but there was one that caught his eye the most, and it was the store that fitted grooms and brides for weddings. Lance winces.

_9:50 am,_ Keith checks the time on his phone and decides it’s time to head to the restaurant.  
_10:00 am,_ They arrive at the restaurant, there’s a line.

**12 hours left.**  

After 5 minutes, they reach the front of the line and are promptly seated.  
Keith excitedly seats himself across from Lance, menu in hand.  
"I’ll order for both of us today, I’m sure you’ll love it.”  
Lance smiles, as gentle as always, “I’m sure I will.”  
Keith calls the waiter over and whispers the order into his ear. Lance could feel Keith’s excitement from his side of the table and he doesn’t have the heart to not act like he knew exactly what he ordered word for word.

_10:30 am,_ their food arrives. Lance has to act surprised.  
“Oh my gosh! Babe I can’t believe you remembered!”  
“I knew you’d like it!”  
It was the first meal they ever had together as a couple, a simple dish of ravioli. They spend 1 hour and 23 minutes seated in the restaurant, eating said ravioli and chatting about their rivalry back in high school. For a moment Lance feels himself lose track of time because watching Keith sit in front of him, talking without a care in the world… Lance remembers every reason he had ever fallen in love with Keith. That moment is soon cut short as he remembers that he needs to watch the time closely.

_11:53 am,_ they finish their meal and promptly leave after paying. Keith looks very satisfied with himself and Lance can’t help but feel an overwhelming fear well up in his chest.

**11 hours left.**

_12:34 pm,_ Keith takes Lance to the local Ikea, they spend a large portion of their day looking at furniture and house decorations and although Lance knows exactly what Keith wants, he lets him explore the store because the way Keith looks so god damn happy over picking furniture together with Lance is worth the little time they had left. Lance knew that no matter how much he tried to change events, it would always end the same, he would rather Keith enjoy his time than to rush things at this point.

_3:00 pm,_ Keith has finally decided what he wants to purchase and they leave Ikea.

**8 hours left.**

The walk back home from the city square wasn’t long, but Keith liked to take it slow because it wasn’t every day that he was in charge of planning dates, Lance would never deny Keith the happiness.  
“I have a surprise for you tonight.”  
“Oh… I wonder what it could possibly be.” Lance muses, albeit rather knowingly.  
“You’ll see.” Keith hums, grinning from ear to ear.  
“I guess I will, huh…”  
  
_4:00 pm,_ they arrive at home and Keith begins to make their dinner, Lance spends the entire time seated at the kitchen table, admiring Keith’s back as he worked, as if it would be the last time he’d see it… as if.

_5:15 pm,_ Keith tells Lance to take go take a shower and Lance does. Keith showers soon after him.

_5:45 pm,_ Keith sets up dinner for Lance and kisses his forehead.  
“I need to go to work for a shift, I’ll be back earlier than usual tonight! Be ready for the surprise.”  
Lance nods meekly seating himself down at the dinner table set up for one. He is hesitant  to let Keith go to work but he knows that it’s inevitable. “Yeah… See you tomorrow…”  
Keith tilts his head, his eyes brows knitting up in confusion, “I’ll be home before 12, I promise.” he assures Lance, though Lance knows that’s an empty promise.  
“Sorry, mind must have slipped.” He smiles but his eyes don’t.  
  
**6 hours left.**

Lance spends quite some time eating dinner, he had 6 excruciating hours to wait. Lance sits at the dinner table, his fork picking at the food on his plate slowly. He would bring the food up and chew in silence. The ticking of the clock becomes much more prominent when the only presence in the house was his own. An hour passes and he has finally finished his meal, it had become cold after the first half an hour but that didn’t stop him from enjoying Keith’s cooking.

**5 hours left.**

Lance places the dishes in the sink and washes them, despite the fact that he has no need to, because Keith had always hassled him to wash the dishes after they finished dinner and Lance loved him too much to not do the dishes at his request. He gently places the clean dripping plates onto the drying rack and wipes up the sink.

He walks himself up to their bedroom and seats himself on the edge of the bed. He leans back into Keith’s side of the bed and rolls to his side, he takes a deep breath, pulling out his phone.

_7:30 pm,_ 15th February.

He unlocks his phone and starts to scroll through the thousands of photos he had taken of Keith and himself, the countless moments they had captured in photographs, from the first day they met up till now.  Lance swipes through them, slowly, even slower when they were just photos of Keith. He has done this countless times before, he remembers the exact order of the photos, but he still does it because the last thing Lance would want is to forget what his life with Keith was like before all of this.

**4 hours left.**

Lance gets up from bed and sits in the living room and he waits. He waits and it feels like an eternity, he wants to see Keith right now but if he folded it would fuck up the whole process, so he waits.

His phone rings.

“…Hello? Yes, this is Lance McClain… Yes…”  
He knows what the news to come is but it still rips right through his will, every time.  
“Yes…” his voice cracks a little.  
_“Keith Kogane has passed away.”_  
He has heard these words before, he has heard them a million times, and every time it rips through his very being like it did the first. Every time, he loses his words. Every time, he is at a loss.  
  
**3 hours left.**

Lance struggles to stay composed, but he has to. He can’t fuck this up. He heads out to receive Keith’s things  from Shiro, neatly folded into a pile.  
“The officer said that… Keith was holding onto this.” Shiro places a box on top of his nearly folded jacket and Lance winces.  
“Lance… listen… don’t do anything stupid, ok?” but Lance just smiles at him weakly, tiredly, as if to say he’s sorry for this.  
  
**2 hours left.**

Lance heads straight home and seats himself in bed, Keith’s jacket in his lap. He knowingly reaches into the jacket’s pocket pulls out a note. It’s a speech, the same speech he has seen many times before, but he still reads it.

> _“Hi Lance! um, you know I suck with words, like, heck we’ve been going out for 3 years now, but I’ve known you for way longer than that._  
>    
>  I always appreciated when you were there for me, even when I was a constipated teen you seemed to make me smile no matter what, thanks for that.  
>    
>  in these three years we became "official”, honestly I just… I feel like you’re the one! you make me so so happy lance, you make me a better person and help me be more confident in myself.  
>    
>  I wanted to surprise you by being the first to ask your hand in marriage, don’t think you were being subtle about it I knew what you were planning since last year, and honestly, I’ve been waiting and you still didn’t make your first move so… here’s my chance to one up you.  
>    
>  Lance, I want to always be there for you, I want to be your pillar, and I want you to do the same for me, I know you will. So if you say yes, to what I’m about to say I mean, I want you to promise me that you’ll always be strong and we’ll be strong together. Let’s always smile together.  
>    
>  Lance, would you marry me? “

He reads it and reads it and reads it over and over again. He has engraved those very words into his brain. No matter how many times he has read it, it will never not hurt.

**1 hour left.**

Lance opens the box that Shiro had given him. He already knows what it is but he still opens it, he still looks at it. 

  
_"Forever and Always.”_  
  
“Forever and Always, Keith…” he whispers to himself, his voice is raspy, he wants to cry but he doesn’t.  
“I’ll see you soon… Forever and always right?”

00:00 AM.  
15th February.

Lance abruptly jumps out of bed and looks for Keith.

“Welcome home…”


End file.
